


Welcome Home

by bookwyrmling



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Domestic fics will always be the death of me, Future Fic, M/M, Mentions of Kent Parson - Freeform, Mentions of past!Pimms, so I'm taking the rest of you with me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-01
Updated: 2016-10-01
Packaged: 2018-08-18 20:54:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,432
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8175835
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bookwyrmling/pseuds/bookwyrmling
Summary: Jack comes back home after winning game 5 of the conference finals to find Bitty waiting up for him.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SummerFrost](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SummerFrost/gifts).



> This is a writing meme prompt-fill for SummerFrost from Tumblr, asking for a prequel for one of my WIPs. It's actually for a PB&J fic that I've recently started on, but have yet to begin posting, but it also works well as a stand-alone ZimBits.
> 
> Either way, I hope you enjoy!

Bitty woke to the sound of the door opening, jolting out of a light doze with SportsCenter on in the background. They had moved on to baseball already, talking about an eleven inning game between the Padres and the A’s and Bitty blinked his eyes with a muzzy groan as he grabbed the remote and turned the television off.

“You’re still up?”

With a soft smirk, Bitty stretched his body along the length of the couch, wearing his Zimmermann Falconers jersey and the short blue shorts he knew Jack simultaneously hated and loved. “Why wouldn’t I be?” he mumbled before pushing himself to sit up, leaning over the back of the couch and holding his arms out, “It’s not that late.”

Jack chuckled at Bitty’s grabby-hands and dropped his bag with a loud thud and walked over. He sighed in relief when they wrapped around his waist and he smiled down at Bitty’s own grin from where he looked up at him, chin pressed against his abdomen.

“You had an early start, though,” he reminded him, threading his fingers through Bitty’s mussed hair. Bitty’s eyes slid shut. He moaned and leaned into the touch and it gave Jack ideas he might have voiced if they weren’t at game 5 of the conference finals with three wins under their belts and due to ride back out to New York for game 6 tomorrow. He hummed instead and leaned down for a welcome back kiss, soft and exactly what he needed to melt the last of the tension from his shoulders.

Bitty still had this hazy look to his smile and eyes that made him seem not quite present and Jack pressed his forehead against Bitty’s as he released another sigh.

“Bedtime?” he suggested and felt Bitty’s head nod against his own.

“Was jus’ waitin’ for ya,” Bittle mumbled before wrapping his arms around Jack’s shoulders so Jack could pick him up.

With a smirk, Jack did just that, tossing Bitty over his shoulder and drawing out a yelp when he gave a slight tap to his rear before letting his hand rest there.

“Mr. Zimmermann, you did not just chirp me with a shoulder throw!” Bitty argued as Jack walked the both of them down the hall to his bedroom. When he snorted, Bitty reached down and gave a resounding smack in return to Jack’s own ass.

Jack froze at it, expression shocked before his eyes started tearing up and shoulders shaking from withheld laughter. “Really, Bits? With your mom in the guest room?”

“You hush now,” Bitty did chuckle in return, pressing his face into Jack’s jacket and back and breathing deep. “Lord, I missed ya.”

“But your back now,” Jack soothed, rubbing his hand up and down the back of Bitty’s thighs, “Did you get everything?”

“Pretty much, yup,” Bitty said after Jack placed him back on his feet in their shared bedroom. “Some stuff from my childhood I couldn’t make much use of, but my mother didn’t wanna get rid of, so that’s all been packed away and stored in their basement now. It was pretty weird seein’ my room that empty.”

Jack nodded as he stripped out of his suit, handing his jacket to Bitty to hang, tugging off his tie and wrapping it up before setting it on top of the dresser.

“Didja hear the Aces are out?” Bitty asked as he hung Jack’s suit back up in the closet.

“Media brought it up in scrum,” Jack admitted, “Asked what we thought about facing the Blackhawks and if we’d been looking forward to a duel for the Cup with the Aces. As if any of us have time to think about anything else but the Rangers right now.”

“As if they were hoping for nothing but a soundbyte for the Zimmermann-Parson rivalry, you mean,” Eric called out with a roll of his eyes from the walk-in before stepping back out to find Jack in his boxers and one of his softer t-shirts.

“Our teams aren’t even in the same conference,” Jack frowned to himself. He turned down the covers and climbed in. Bitty yawned and sprawled out along the other side, starfishing over the covers, closing his eyes and breathing over-dramatically deep.

Jack smiled at the sight, glad to have Bitty back with him after his slapdash trip to Georgia to move the last of his belongings up to Rhode Island, and then turned over to turn on his alarm clock.

“Wha’ time?” Bitty asked into the blanket at the familiar clicking of the buttons, dragging himself up onto the pillow and under the sheets.

“Usual,” Jack grunted as he slid towards the center, “Wanna get a run in before heading out.”

“Are you sure you should be pushing yourself like that?” Bitty asked, running his hand up the expanse of Jack’s torso. He brushed his thumb along his jawline in concern and Jack smiled, turning his head to kiss the tip of Bitty’s thumb.

“Nothing hard,” he promised, “I just need to keep loose.”

Bitty studied his face under heavy eyelids for a moment before yawning and sinking further into the blankets. He threw an arm over Jack’s waist, slipping his fingers underneath the hem of Jack’s shirt to press his palm against his skin. “‘Kay,” he murmured as his breathing began to even.

Jack watched for a few more minutes – until he had trouble keeping his own eyes open – and then leaned over Bitty to turn off the lamp on the nightstand, dropping the room into pitch black his eyes were not yet acclimatized to.

“Did you really wanna play against the Aces, though?”

Jack jerked back from the precipice of sleep at the question, wondered if he had merely imagined the question at first – one of those dreams that blend with reality when you’re not quite asleep but definitely not awake – but then noticed the minimal moonlight catching the whites of Bitty’s eyes.

He hummed in thought, rubbing his hand up and down Bitty’s spine. “Not play particularly,” he finally admitted. “I’d be a little afraid Tater might do Kent some serious damage during a Cup run,” he grinned but the energy behind the chirp was missing and his smile fell into contemplation once more as he admitted, “but I’ve been thinking about meeting with Kent. We have a long overdue talk I think I’m finally ready for.”

“Nn,” Bitty grunted in disapproval. “You know what your therapist’d say about that.”

“The only time I need to be concerned about is my own. This sort of thing isn't late or overdue if I’m not ready to do it,” Jack parroted with a grin as he snuggled up against Bitty, pressing their foreheads together, sharing their breaths.

“‘Xactly. Like a wizard,” Bitty said with a sleepy smile in reply, “Always on time.”

Jack nodded along with Bitty’s running joke. “I think my time might finally be okay if he’s ready for it.”

In the following silence, it was only the feel of Bitty’s fingers brushing lazily across the small of his back that kept Jack from wondering if he had fallen asleep in the middle of their conversation. Instead, as Bitty went longer without replying, Jack began to worry. Sure Bitty had said he wasn’t jealous of Kent before, but that was when Jack had been shutting him out of his life. Would that change now that Jack was reaching out? Even if it was to finally close that chapter of his life permanently and lay the last of its old ghosts to rest?

“You know I’m gonna support you no matter what you decide, sweetheart,” Bitty finally replied the moment Jack’s breath caught and he opened his mouth to ask. He froze at it, taking a few moments to process what he had heard even after his delayed recognition that Bitty had, indeed, spoken in the first place.

But Bitty was not done yet. “You gonna be okay if he isn’t ready, though? If he doesn’t want what you want?” he asked and Jack’s breath caught and stuttered once again.

It was Jack’s turn for silence this time, the hand that had been rubbing up and down Bitty’s spine paused now only for his thumb to tape out the rhythm of his thoughts. In the end, as his thumb slowed, he sighed. “I can’t control how he reacts and there’s no point thinking about it right now,” he decided before adjusting himself more comfortably, his chin pressing into the crown of Bitty’s head as he pulled him in closer. “We’ll see how the summer goes.”


End file.
